 He has also written many books, including his biographies "Back There where the Past Was" (1989) and "A Life in Writing" (2006).In 1992, he was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival and served on the advisory board of the Los Angeles Student Film Institute.In his later years, since the late 1990s, Champlin had macular degeneration, and in 2001 wrote "My Friend, You Are Legally Blind," a memoir about his struggle with the disease.